Asus Zenfone 5 price leaked ahead of launch, and we’re not impressed

Asus recently took the wraps off the much-awaited Zenfone 5 on February 28 at the Mobile World Congress 2018 event in Barcelona. The Zenfone 5 (First Impressions) at the time of its unveiling impressed one and all with a beautiful design reminiscent of the iPhone X, complete with the infamous notch.

Though no pricing and availability details were revealed at the unveiling, there were speculations that the Snapdragon 636-sporting Zenfone 5 could be one of the most affordable notch display smartphones when it launches.

Now, the Taiwanese manufacturer is all set to officially launch the Zenfone 5 in several markets including India, China, Pakistan, and many European countries as well. In fact, Asus has already set a launch event in Taiwan and China for tomorrow, April 12, 2018, and just ahead of the official launch the price of the smartphone has surfaced online.

According to a leak from MyDrivers, the Zenfone 5 will retail for TWD 11,990, which roughly translates to Rs 26,700 in Indian currency.

Now, that’s a little steep for a smartphone packing a Snapdragon 636 chipset, especially when there is already Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro which too packs an SD 636 chipset, but sells for nearly half the price.

In Taiwan, the Zenfone 5 is expected to be launched in 4GB RAM and 6GB RAM options, while in the other countries, Asus may launch it in a single 4GB RAM variant. However, nothing is confirmed as of now.

Nonetheless, the latest price leak corresponds with other Zenfone 5 price leaks from the past and is also in-line with Asus’ pricing strategy in the recent years.

Sure, the Zenfone 5 features an elegant 6.2-inch IPS LCD display with a notch, but the price is a little disappointing as we expected the Zenfone 5 to be priced around the Rs 20,000 mark, at least the base 4GB RAM + 64GB storage variant.

OPPO F7 first impressions

It also has to be noted that the recently launched display notch smartphones in India – the Oppo F7 (REVIEW) and Vivo V9 also pack mid-range chipsets (Mediatek Helio P60 and Snapdragon 626 chips respectively) but they are priced starting at Rs 21,990 and Rs 22,990 respectively.

Asus ZenFone 5 India launch date and price

Meanwhile, Asus is expected to launch the Zenfone 5 in India sometime in May this year, but the exact launch date of the device is still not known. It will be interesting to see how Asus prices the Zenfone 5 in India especially when there are already two ‘notch’ smartphones in the Oppo F7 and Vivo V9.

However, we can expect Asus to launch Zenfone 5 4G variant at not more than Rs 25,000 in India.

Asus ZenFone 5 Specifications

The Asus Zenfone 5 sports a 6.2-inch IPS LCD display with a notch on top of the display and a 19:9 aspect ratio coupled with a resolution of 2246 x 1080 pixels.

Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC that’s coupled with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.

The Zenfone 5 packs a dual rear camera setup with a primary 12MP sensor which is a Sony IMX363 unit and a secondary 12MP sensor with 120-degree wide-angle lens. Over at the front, the handset has an 8MP selfie camera with AR stickers.

It features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and also supports Face unlocking. The device packs a 3000mAh battery with fast charging support (USB Type C port) and runs Android 8.0 Oreo out-of-the-box with Zen UI on top.